Some months later the Hôtel de Ville was the scene of a grand dinner given in honour of the Emperor of Austria, brother of the unfortunate Maximilian. Here, for the first time in modern history, privileged guests were admitted by invitation cards to galleries, from which the spectacle of two sovereigns dining together could be enjoyed. Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” recommends the sight of two kings engaged in single combat as a cure for atrabiliousness. It was probably as an improvement on Burton’s remedy, so difficult to procure, that a private view of two Emperors sitting together at table was offered to a favoured few.
After the breakdown of the Second Empire and the flight of the Empress from Paris, the Government of National Defence, consisting of all the Paris Deputies, had its head-quarters at the Hôtel de Ville; and here, when the so-called government had given place to the Central Committee, and the Central Committee to the Commune, the last-named body held its deliberations. In 1875 the Hôtel de Ville was reconstructed, with certain modifications and amplifications, on the lines of the ancient one, burned down by the Communards. The new edifice contains either in niches, or on external pinnacles, rather more than 100 statues, reproducing the features of all kinds of celebrities, the whole of them belonging to France, with the single exception of Cortone, born in Italy. The collection includes the architects of the original building, some of the most famous merchant-provosts, mayors of Paris, prefects of the Seine, and municipal councillors, among whom may be mentioned Michel Lallier, who delivered Paris from the English, François Miron, and Pierre Viole. Literature, the stage, and music are largely represented in the effigies of Beaumarchais, Béranger, Boileau, F. Halévy, Hérold, Marivaux, Molière, Picard, Alfred de Musset, Charles Perrault, Quinault, Regnard, George Sand, Scribe, etc.; nor have architecture, sculpture, painting, and the industrial arts been forgotten in this spacious Walhalla, where are found the statues of Boucher, Boulle (known among Englishmen, in connection with various kinds of inlaid work, as “Bühl,”) Chardin, Corot, Daubigny, Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Decamps, Firmin Didot, the well-known printer, Jean Goujon, Gros, Lancret, Le Brun, Le Nôtre, Pierre Lescot, Lesueur, Mansard, Germain Pilon, Henri Regnault, Théodore Rousseau, Horace Vernet, etc. Mingled with the writers, composers, painters, sculptors, and architects, are statesmen and historians such as Cardinal de Richelieu, the Marquis d’Argenson, {248} the Duke de Saint-Simon, De Thou, Pierre de l’Estoile, and Michelet. Two illustrious tragedians figure in this chosen company, Lekain and Talma.
The new Hôtel de Ville has been furnished with magnificence and good taste. The staircases are very fine, but the essentially modern character of the internal arrangements is sufficiently shown by the lifts which work between the basement and the upper storeys.
On the side of the Hôtel de Ville looking towards the river are the private apartments of the Prefect of the Seine, who performs the functions of Mayor of Paris. In the left wing sit the clerks, engaged in duties as complicated as those of a Ministerial bureau, and here also is the hall in which the sittings of the Municipal Council are held. The prefectorial functions are divided between two prefects: the Prefect of the Seine, whose duties are exclusively administrative; and the Prefect of Police, who attends not only to the Police of Paris, but, in a general way, to Police matters throughout the country. The finances of the city or town of Paris (“ville de Paris” is its traditional, historic name) are regulated, under the authority of the Prefect of the Seine, by a Municipal Council composed of eighty members elected on universal suffrage, four members for each arrondissement, or one for each quartier. These eighty councillors form the Council-General of the Seine, whose principal duty it is to prepare the budget of the department. They are forbidden to occupy themselves in any manner with politics. Though the prefects of the various departments are not supposed in France to exercise political functions, they are really political officers—that is to say, they are appointed by the Central {249} Government, and frequently, though in many cases secretly, do the work of political agents. During the invasion of 1870 they were regarded as political officers, and everywhere retired as the invaders advanced; the mayors meanwhile, as municipal officers, everywhere remaining. It has been said that the duties of the Prefecture of Paris are shared by the Prefect of the Seine and the Prefect of Police, and that the former conducts his business at the Hôtel de Ville. His associate, though connected with the Hôtel de Ville, has his establishment, with its various bureaux, at the Palais de Justice in the “Cité.”
The island of the Cité, the ancient Lutetia, the cradle of modern Paris, has possessed from time immemorial, and certainly from the first years of the Roman conquest, a religious edifice, first a Pagan temple and afterwards a Christian church, on the western extremity of the Parisian island; while the eastern extremity has been always occupied by a palace reserved for the Government, and for the administration of justice.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE.
The Palais de Justice—Its Historical Associations—Disturbances in Paris—Successive Fires—During the Revolution—The Administration of Justice—The Sainte-Chapelle.